💻IT: Asset (Definitions)

[process asset:] "Anything that the organization considers useful in attaining the goals of a process area." (Sandy Shrum et al, "CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement", 2003)

[organizational process assets:] "Artifacts that relate to describing, implementing, and improving processes (e.g., policies, measurements, process descriptions, and process implementation support tools). The term process assets is used to indicate that these artifacts are developed or acquired to meet the business objectives of the organization, and they represent investments by the organization that are expected to provide current and future business value." (Sandy Shrum et al, "CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement", 2003)

[process asset:] "Artifacts that relate to describing, implementing, and improving processes (e.g., policies, process descriptions, guidance, examples, aids, checklists, project closeout reports, metrics data, and training materials). The artifacts meet the organization’s business objectives, and represent investments expected to provide current and future business value." (Richard D Stutzke, "Estimating Software-Intensive Systems: Projects, Products, and Processes", 2005)

[organizational process assets:] "Any or all process-related assets, from any or all of the organizations involved in the project that are or can be used to influence the project's success. These process assets include formal and informal plans, policies, procedures, and guidelines. The process assets also include the organizations’ knowledge bases such as lessons learned and historical information." (Project Management Institute, "Practice Standard for Project Estimating", 2010)

[organizational process assets:] "Any or all process related assets, from any or all of the organizations involved in the project that are or can be used to influence the project's success. These process assets include formal and informal plans, policies, procedures, and guidelines. The process assets also include the organizations' knowledge bases such as lessons learned and historical information." (Cynthia Stackpole, "PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummies", 2011)

[IT assets:] "Tangible deliverables created during the course of an IT project that can be used in other similar projects. Examples include design, software code, or a testing scenario." (Janice M Roehl-Anderson, "IT Best Practices for Financial Managers", 2010)

[organizational process assets:] "Plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization. " (Project Management Institute, "The Standard for Portfolio Management" 3rd Ed., 2012)

[organizational process assets:] "Plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases that are specific to and used by the performing organization." (For Dummies, "PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummie", 2nd Ed., 2013)

[Software assets:] "software tools needed to manipulate the organization's information to accomplish the organization's mission." ( Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"Data contained in an information system; or a service provided by a system; or a system capability, such as processing power or communication bandwidth; or an item of system equipment (that is, a system component - hardware, firmware, software, or documentation); or a facility that houses system operations and equipment." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"Any item that has value to the organisation." (ISO/IEC 27000:2012)

⛏️Data Management: Data Asset (Definitions)

[information asset:] "Data in any form or media placed into meaningful context for users, collected in relation to business or research activity." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"The term data asset refers generically to organizational data, or to any transactional system, data storage system, or application that contains data required for business functions. Any of these systems might be involved in the production and use of data and therefore may affect its quality. Treating data as an asset enables organizations to manage and increase its value. The quality of the data in a system has direct effects on the successful execution of business functions and therefore the success of the enterprise as a whole." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

[information asset:] "digitally stored content owned by an individual or organization." ( Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"Any entity that is comprised of data. For example, a database is a data asset that is comprised of data records. A data asset may be a system or application output file, database, document, or web page. A data asset also includes a service that may be provided to access data from an application. For example, a service that returns individual records from a database would be a data asset. Similarly, a web site that returns data in response to specific queries would be a data asset." (CNSSI 4009-2015)

"Data assets refer to a system, application output file, document, database, or web page that companies use to generate revenues." (CFI) [source]

♜Strategic Management: Competitive Advantage (Definitions)

"The relative advantage that one product or product line has over those products offered by other companies." (Steven Haines, "The Product Manager's Desk Reference", 2008)

"An advantage a company has over its competitors, which is gained by providing consumers with greater value through product or service offerings." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"A strategic advantage held by one organization that cannot be matched by its competitors. This advantage may or may not be sustainable and, if not, may eventually be replicated by its competitors." (Evan Stubbs, "Big Data, Big Innovation", 2014)

"A strategy whereby companies position themselves ahead of competitors either by charging less or by differentiating their services or products from those of their rivals. " (DK, "The Business Book", 2014)

"The characteristics of an organization that differentiate it from other organizations in the same sector and that cannot easily be replicated. This differentiation may potentially provide the basis for competitive advantage. From a strategic management perspective it is the differentiated competences that are significant because they can be most easily managed strategically through training and development. Thus it is usually a distinctive network of competences that are most likely to provide competitive advantage. These distinctive competences are usually also core competences, but core competences are not necessarily distinctive." (Fran Ackermann et al, "Visual Strategy: Strategy Mapping for Public and Nonprofit Organizations", 2014)

"A sustainable, strategic advantage that an organization possesses over its industry rivals." (Andrew Pham et al, "From Business Strategy to Information Technology Roadmap", 2016)

"The unique set of assets, capabilities, positions and environmental circumstances that enable an organisation to consistently out-perform its competitors in its chosen strategic outcomes." (Duncan Angwin & Stephen Cummings, "The Strategy Pathfinder 3rd Ed.", 2017)

"A firm possesses a competitive advantage over its direct competitors when it earns (or has the potential to earn) a persistently higher rate of profit." (Robert M Grant, "Contemporary Strategy Analysis" 10th Ed., 2018)

🔢Neera Bhansali - Collected Quotes

"Are data quality and data governance the same thing? They share the same goal, essentially striving for the same outcome of optimizing data and information results for business purposes. Data governance plays a very important role in achieving high data quality. It deals primarily with orchestrating the efforts of people, processes, objectives, technologies, and lines of business in order to optimize outcomes around enterprise data assets. This includes, among other things, the broader cross-functional oversight of standards, architecture, business processes, business integration, and risk and compliance. Data governance is an organizational structure that oversees the compliance and standards of enterprise data." (Neera Bhansali, "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets", 2014)

"Data governance is about putting people in charge of fixing and preventing data issues and using technology to help aid the process. Any time data is synchronized, merged, and exchanged, there have to be ground rules guiding this. Data governance serves as the method to organize the people, processes, and technologies for data-driven programs like data quality; they are a necessary part of any data quality effort." (Neera Bhansali, "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets", 2014)

"Data governance is the process of creating and enforcing standards and policies concerning data. [...] The governance process isn't a transient, short-term project. The governance process is a continuing enterprise-focused program." (Neera Bhansali, "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets", 2014)

"Having data quality as a focus is a business philosophy that aligns strategy, business culture, company information, and technology in order to manage data to the benefit of the enterprise. Data quality is an elusive subject that can defy measurement and yet be critical enough to derail a single IT project, strategic initiative, or even an entire company." (Neera Bhansali, "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets", 2014)

"Understanding an organization's current processes and issues is not enough to build an effective data governance program. To gather business, functional, and technical requirements, understanding the future vision of the business or organization is important. This is followed with the development of a visual prototype or logical model, independent of products or technology, to demonstrate the data governance process. This business-driven model results in a definition of enterprise-wide data governance based on key standards and processes. These processes are independent of the applications and of the tools and technologies required to implement them. The business and functional requirements, the discovery of business processes, along with the prototype or model, provide an impetus to address the "hard" issues in the data governance process." (Neera Bhansali, "Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets", 2014)